


the other side of this will find us together (we’re gonna make this better)

by proximally



Series: abandoned works [5]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, POV Second Person, Reincarnation, three attempts at the same idea before i gave up lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27153511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proximally/pseuds/proximally
Summary: You will fix this.
Relationships: Chara & Frisk (Undertale)
Series: abandoned works [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981928
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs





	the other side of this will find us together (we’re gonna make this better)

**Author's Note:**

> title from the lyrics of Together We're Gonna Make This by The Garages. yes it's the blaseball band. yes i've been listening to exclusively them for the last week.
> 
> originally written april 2016.
> 
> if you'd like to take the concept and run with it, please feel free! i'd really appreciate this being linked back to though.

i.

Same-colour souls, they say, always feel some sort of kinship. There’s no truth to the sentiment, no hard science behind it, but, like homeopathic remedies, it’s propagated nonetheless. You’d like to be able to testify either way, but you’ve never had the opportunity; red souls are rare, and ones as vibrant as yours even more so. People would always marvel at you when you showed them, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the bloody hue and telling you how blessed you were; privately, it’s always felt like a failing. Like it was meant for someone else.

There are stories, you see, about people with red souls. Not cerise souls, not brick, not vermilion, but _True Red Souls_ \- folks who tended to go down in history, though not always in the right way. Folks wise beyond their years with ideas ahead of their time, folks with supernatural reflexes and surprise fighting prowess, folks with old, sad eyes and mercurial moods. Strange people, say the legends, such strange people this type of soul creates.

You’d only ever wondered at these tales. You’d clutch your t-shirt over your heart and ask, why did you choose me? You’d cry, maybe, thinking about all the ways you’d never measure up to expectations. You were just some stupid kid with no talents or aptitudes to speak of, and the only thing to set you apart was the colour of your soul. They made you want to scream, sometimes, your jealous classmates, cautious teachers, fawning strangers - all the muttered comments, the sideways glances, the _do you really think Frisk’d be getting those grades if nobody knew about the red soul?_

And then you fell. Then you _understood_ . You could see, intimately, why those old True Red Souls became the people they did, and you can only imagine their suffering. Did they have confidantes? Loved ones who believed them and who sympathised, if never empathised? In that regard, you _are_ blessed: your siblings, who understand better than anyone else ever could.

Now, in this world it is not opposites but equals that attract, and so true red soul gravitates to true red soul: hence your choosing of that particular hole, and hence your visiting this particular ancient, unmarked grave.

* * *

ii.

When you fell, you woke up with a passenger. Neither of you knew why, but que sera, sera, and as you progress they rapidly decide that your ignorance is unbecoming and do their best to rectify the problem. You think they get a little overenthusiastic sometimes - they narrate _everything_ you do - but equally they seem to be having fun, and who are you to tell them to stop? You grow very fond of their sense of humour, and fonder of that glowy feeling that emanates from them when you tell them so.

There are some things you clash over. You don’t want to hurt anyone, but they insist it’s necessary - they tell you that the flower was definitely horrible, but he wasn’t wrong. Kill or be killed, they whisper, but you feel like you’ve known them long enough to detect the waver in their voice. They don’t believe that. Not totally. Not anymore.

They get upset when you’re hurt, and angry when you’re killed; it doesn’t matter to you because you’ll always come right back and it’s not like nobody here has a valid reason to wish your death. Your headmate has other ideas, though, and the first time you had to reload, their sudden bid for control was so unexpected that they’d managed to beat your killer half to death before you’d got your bearings. When you finally wrested back the reins, the monster was a fine layer of dust on your skin. You reloaded.

You refused to talk to them after that. They yelled at you and called you names for some time, and you can’t deny that it hurt. You thought you’d been friends. You won’t cry, though. Maybe if you ignore them they’ll go away.

They run out of steam soon enough and go silent. You continue to pretend they don’t exist, and do your damnedest to enjoy yourself without them - and you definitely don’t let on how much you miss their snarky comments.

They apologise, then, plead with you to just say something, _anything_ , and the sincerity they exude makes you falter. You don’t respond, keep walking, and their voice gets smaller and smaller until you hear them say: “Okay. Okay, I’ll go. I won’t...I won’t bother you again. I’m sorry. Um. Goodbye, then…”

You stop walking, and let a forlorn little smile tug at your lips. You apologise for your behaviour - being ignored, feeling unwanted, that’s not nice and you know it - and you tell them you understand. They don’t want you to get hurt, you get that now, but don’t they see that you’re not worth the trouble?

It’s the wrong thing to say, evidently, because they’re yelling again - only, this time, it’s a storm of compliments rather than insults, and you find yourself actively blushing. You hide your face in your sleeves - nobody can know! - but this just encourages them. Then they try cheering you with self-deprecating comments, and it’s your turn to get incensed - you’re soon engaged in an all-out flattery war that ends up with you arriving at the next puzzle with your face such a bright shade of red that Papyrus doesn’t immediately recognise you. Sans just keeps making tomato jokes.

Things go back to normal, for a time - or as normal as things get when you’re trapped underground with a horde of monsters and some sort of ghost in your head. You date a skeleton - or two, if you count the trip to Grillby’s. You make a new friend. You get pranked (your passenger laughs at you). You get chased by a monster in a suit of armour. An average kind of day.

Then you discover the wall that details the War of Humans and Monsters.

Much like your history lessons in school, it’s not very detailed and speaks little of the War itself, but it makes you...uneasy. Your friend feels the same way, and you smell blood and dust, hurt and betrayal, until you leave the room. The faintest sounds of battlecries and clashing swords haunts you longer. You both try to drown it out with conversation.

When you greet Gerson, you’re nearly overcome with a sense of deja-vu, and for a minute it’s not an elderly shopkeeper you’re talking to but a young, strong warrior. You thank anyone who’s listening when he doesn’t notice your spaciness - and, really, you should’ve expected the sarcastic reply. You note their voice’s hesitance, though; are they having the same problem?

Whether they are or not, you don’t ask and they don’t volunteer, so you move on. You have better things to do than worry about possible hallucinations.

* * *

iii.

You’re smiling as you scale the mountain.

Your purpose is made clearer with every step you take, and there’s nothing so comforting as knowing you’ll soon have all the answers. 

You’re a strange child, they said. Too gentle, too kind. You’re soft, they say, and they say it in a sort of marvelling tone - or most do, anyway. Some say it mockingly, and you smile at them extra-bright because if they’re being mean, then perhaps they need a little kindness to remind them that they don’t have to be. They once told you you reminded them of their grandpa. Tranquil. Content.

[...]

It paid off, as you knew it would. The call came, at last, or at least what you interpreted as the call. A little feeling that said: climb the mountain. Faint, but strengthening with every step you took. In your bus seat another feeling unfolds within you: go home. It doesn’t pull you back to where you slept, but then, that never was a home to you. Home is ahead of you now, and you think that perhaps it has always been.

A feeling whispers that answers are ahead of you, too. Answers to why in dreams you are too tall and your hair is the wrong colour, why your gaze lingers on sharp edges, why you’ve never quite felt like a whole person.

You’re smiling as you scale the mountain, though your lungs burn and your feet ache because you’ve never walked so far for so long but it will all be worth it because your future is here your future is now and you trip on a loose stone you lose your footing and you fall but oh you are still smiling---

You wake on a bed of golden yellow flowers, and you can’t help the tears that stream down your face, because it’s all so familiar and comforting and you feel just that little more complete. 

Toriel is as kind as she has ever been, and as sad as you have ever seen her. You are filled with regret: you should not have left them. Not the first time, nor the second, and you vow to yourself: never again. You are remembering more with every step you take, and oh, doesn’t it hurt? You brought them together, and you split them apart. You took their freedom, then you took their hope, and still they stand. You were right, you think, you were always right. They never deserved this; you never deserved them. 

It would be so easy to destroy them, to muster your age-old frustration, your pain, your suffering, and strike, but you had your fill of blood and dust a long, long time ago and you are determined to make this right.

You will fix this.


End file.
